ASUS’ Rumored Budget Tablet Becomes Official; ASUS MeMO Pad for $149

We’ve seen this tablet being leaked since, well since the Nexus 7 was announced. We all thought it would be a $99 version of the popular Nexus tablet. But looks like we were wrong about that. This is the 7-inch budget tablet from ASUS. It’s named the MeMO pad, and when you first look at it, it looks a lot like a Nexus 7. In fact many of the specs are same as well. Speaking of specs, let’s see what this tablet is packing under the hood:

It’s got some, okay looking specs. Certainly not a powerhouse, but for the price it’s not bad. Of course $50 and you’ve got a Nexus 7, and a more recent version of Android. The MeMO Pad will be available in Sugar White, Titanium Gray and Cherry Pink colors. As far as availability, it’ll be hitting selected markets in January. The MeMO Pad also doesn’t have a dock like the Transformer Pad line of tablets. \

So this isn’t a Nexus 7 killer, but more like something you’d get your kids, or even yourself as an eReader. It’ll be interesting to see in 2013 how many manufacturers put out some cheap tablets like Acer’s Iconia B1 and this new ASUS MeMO Pad. Who remembers last year’s CES where ASUS introduced us to a $249 Tegra 3 tablet, that we never saw again, only we did. It came back in June as the Nexus 7. Wonder if Google will do the same thing this Summer with this tablet? It’ll be interesting to see if they keep relatively the same specs and throw in the Tegra 4 for release at Google I/O in May. But it’s pretty interesting that ASUS didn’t announce this at CES last week in Las Vegas.

So who’s looking to pick this one up from ASUS? Given their track record, this should be a pretty good device, even though the specs show otherwise. Let us know in the comments below if you’re gonna pick this one up.